Since the fall of man in the Garden of Eden, we’ve been taken captive by sin; its consequences, its destruction, and ultimately its death. In the book of John, Jesus declares, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.” We are in bondage to a sin nature that is vile, corrupt, and self-seeking. Our only hope for freedom is an alternative form of slavery.
We must become servants to a new master, the one who conquered sin by His death and resurrection – Jesus Christ. In a letter to the Corinthians, Paul states, “For he who was a slave when he was called by the Lord is the Lord’s freedman; similarly, he who was a free man when he was called is Christ’s slave. You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of men.” Christ’s substitutionary death at Calvary atoned for our debt, and our acceptance of His free gift binds us to a life of servitude to Him.
Paul writes to the Romans, saying,
“Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Life offers us freedom and slavery, but neither one is mutually exclusive for they are bound together. Someone who is a slave to sin is free from a call to righteousness and holiness, however, a person that is a slave to God and under the authority of the Holy Spirit is free from sin and spiritual death.
(1 Corinthians 7:22-23)
(Romans 6:19-23)
